The Human Economic Model in the Context of a Systematic Approach to the Study of Economics

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to identify the conceptual features of human economic models that determine the uniqueness of the construction of alternative approaches, as well as the possibility of transition to a more realistic model. The methodology of the research is determined by the fact that the economy as a complex system has a special type of properties of elements and their relationships associated with its intersubjective and dualistic nature. The article shows that modern approaches that generate fragmented theoretical descriptions have developed on the basis of reliance on different versions of the standard (basic) model of behavior of economic entities that arose during the marginalist revolution. In this model, economic motives are interpreted (explicitly or implicitly) based on utilitarian ethics, which creates the need to consider the behavior and interaction of subjects in the context of the exogenous influence of non-economic factors. The construction of unorthodox theories is based on the socio-cultural model of man proposed by the historical school, and provides for the study of three levels of economic reality. At the deep level, based on the consideration of value-normative representations and interactions of actors, the specifics of the formation of the institutional system of the economy are substantiated; at the middle level, with the help of institutional and instrumental analysis, the behavior of different groups of its subjects is described, taking into account their positions; based on this, the processes occurring at the surface level are explained. Mainstream theories, relying on the institutional model of a person, use institutional and instrumental analysis to describe the average and superficial levels of reality, which is accompanied by borrowing the ideas of the classical and German schools, as well as unorthodox institutionalism. The paper proposes to abandon simplified interpretations of the classical theory and, in line with its ideas, move from the standard model to the economic and cultural model of a person, taking into account the dualism of his economic motives. This perspective focuses on the creation of a system paradigm adequate to the modern economy for studying the endogenous processes of its transformation and the formation of mechanisms for the successful sovereign development of the national economy.